


24 Hours In A Different Body

by cherrylng



Category: Muse (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Body Image, Drunkenness, Humor, M/M, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 14:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14854871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrylng/pseuds/cherrylng
Summary: When Matt and Dom went to visit a NASA research center, they didn’t expect that it ends up with them stuck in a hotel room for the next 24 hours, having swapped bodies and waiting it out, and questioning how one scientist even managed a feat of science that should have stayed in the realms of fiction.





	24 Hours In A Different Body

**Author's Note:**

> For Panicpalooza. Prompt: Body Swap
> 
> Fannermuser, wherever you are, know that your prompt is finally fulfilled! :D

Science and technology has advanced in fields that even science fiction writers would think that it is unrealistic that it can actually be done in this day and age. And maybe some of those same science fiction writers would take one look at some of the advances and say that while it is impressive that these scientists can do such advanced feats at this modern time, they should’ve questioned themselves also if they  _should_ have done it in the first place.  
  
That is what Matt is thinking about in regards to the situation that he and Dom have ended up in.  
  
When he and Dom and a few other friends went to visit Ames Research Center in the Silicon Valley which is owned by NASA, it was supposed to be just like any other ordinary day to get a guided tour and see rocket engines and all the cool space-related research being done.  
  
Now he and Dom are in a hotel suite room in a nondescript location in California, trying to deal with the aftermath of what has happened to them.   
  
There are officers placed on guard duty in the hotel to provide security for them and to keep the two of them from leaving until the problem is dealt with. That meant that not only are they isolated in a part of California that they don’t know of, but also stuck in the hotel room until the next day.  
  
A big part of Matt wants to think of it as a mad dream, but after pinching himself several times, he still finds himself still awake and very much living a mad dream in real life.  
  
Right now, the eyes that are not his own keeps on staring at the arms that he is controlling but isn’t his. Matt isn’t constantly conscious of his own skin colour, but right now, the brain that isn’t his is quietly freaking out on how his skin  _shouldn’t_  be suntanned and more bronze than the pale colours that he is used to. Of how his hair shouldn’t be bright blond. Of how this body is not his, it’s Dom’s.  
  
It wasn’t Matt’s fault to have picked up the device off of a workshop table during the visit. If anyone were to be blamed, it would be the scientist who was responsible for being too slow in his actions to intervene before he and Dom touched that device together.   
  
Said device is on the desk for both men to see. It is an unassuming piece of device encased in plastic and metal with a screen in its centre that to an average person like Matt, it looks like some fancy digital timer. Nobody except the eccentric scientist himself who invented it knew that the device, if touched by two people at the same time, would cause them to swap bodies.  
  
How the boffin knew it worked that way, Matt can only assume that he tested it on himself and an unfortunate person close to the guy.  
  
Looking up, Matt can see Dom walking around back and forth in the room, the normally cool and calm drummer acting agitated and nervous. He keeps licking over his teeth - _your teeth_ , the brain that doesn’t belong to Matt helpfully supplied- and hasn’t been speaking since they left the research center under escorted security.  
  
“Why do you keep licking over my own teeth?” Matt asks, his nerves finally snapped.  
  
Dom pauses briefly, scowling at Matt ( _Is that what my face looks like when I make a scowl, or is that how Dom makes his?_  Matt wondered).  
  
“I don’t like how your teeth feels to the touch. It feels out of place,” he says.  
  
Matt blinks, then he looks at Dom with a face of disbelief.  
  
“You’re more bothered at my teeth than the fact that we’ve switched bodies?” Matt says, mincing none of his words.  
  
“Hey, I’m not used to having teeth as wonky as yours!” Dom replies defensively.   
  
Even hearing themselves talking to each other is weird, and the description for it need not be said much. It is weird all over.  
  
Matt sighs as he unconsciously brings a hand up to brush his -actually Dom’s- hair. Then Matt gets curious at one thing.  
  
“How do you still have hair on your brows?” Matt asks, fingers sliding and touching the fine hairs that are somehow still there for some reason.  
  
“Hey, my hair can be lighter in colour on certain parts of my body!” Dom says, offended.  
  
“No wonder the fans think it’ll be weird if they see you having actual eyebrows these days than back then,” Matt delivers that sentence bluntly.  
  
“Stop picking on my hair!’  
  
“And you stop being weird over my teeth!” Matt argues back. “Jesus, just take out your phone and pass your time playing with it instead.”  
  
“That’s not a bad idea, only I have to remind you that my phone is still in the pockets of  _my_  body.”  
  
Matt rolls his eyes, fishing the smartphone out of a trouser pocket on the right hand side before tossing it at Dom.  
  
Dom catches his phone and starts to do whatever he wanted to do with his phone.  
  
“Your left arm feels weak,” Dom says after a little while, making a face as he tries to get what is literally Matt’s left hand to use it for more roles than intended.  
  
It feels weird to see his own body just… Not mirroring how he usually moves about. What Matt is seeing is Dom moving about in his body. And he is doing the same vice versa.  
  
Everything is weird right now with what he is noticing and paying attention to.   
  
So the brain that is not Matt’s is, indeed, freaking out. What is keeping him grounded to reality is either due to shock, being quickly adaptive to the situation, or both.  
  
“Because I’m not left-handed, you idiot.”  
  
“I know that. Your left hand still feels like it’s not used to the physical stuff.”  
  
“Fucking hell, you’re in my body, Dom!” Matt groans, frustrated. “I don’t know if I can stand someone being in my body while I’m staring at it from somebody else’s body.”  
  
“Why did you think I was acting like that in the first place before you snapped at me?” Dom rolls his eyes.  
  
“Consider us lucky then that the scientist that invented that device said it was reversible,” Matt mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose.  
  
It was fortunate to them that the scientist had the sense in mind to have tested that device before to at least have the proof that it does. That, and the scientist begged for them not to sue him and bring him to court.  
  
Although from the pointed looks of the scientist’s superiors, the officers that have been guiding their group, and a very pissed off director of the research center, that boffin was already knee deep in trouble for his already irresponsible action of leaving his experimental device out in the open for anyone to pick it up, the not informing the higher ups of his creation of a body-swapping device part notwithstanding.  
  
Dom crosses his arms and he sighs.  
  
“How much time do we have left before we go back to our own selves?” he asks.  
  
“The crazy boffin said that we have to wait out twenty-four hours as was dictated by the device when we touched it. We have twenty-two hours left before the device will automatically reset and switches us back in place.”  
  
It is a big relief that they’re not going to be stuck like this for an uncertain amount of time. There is a reason the timer is installed to the device, which ticks down in how long they have left to go back to normal. If the guy lied and they’re still stuck like this after the time is up, however, then getting sued would become the very thing the scientist could have begged to have instead.  
  
“If we have to wait it out, might as well do other activities then,” Dom puts his phone away and sits down on a sofa. “Let’s just watch something on the telly right now to waste the time away.”  
  
Agreeing to that simple plan, Matt sits down on the armchair next to the sofa that Dom is seated at and Dom turns the television on.  
  
Soon, they settle themselves into watching a movie. It is an action comedy movie that has lots of fights and explosions but is easy to get absorbed into.  
  
They didn’t talk for some time until Dom stretches his legs and suddenly stares at his -Matt’s- foot.  
  
“Have you ever felt the ache coming from your toes?” Dom asks, wiggling his toes.  
  
“It’s a side effect from breaking my toes on that foot,” Matt explains. For being in the drummer’s body, he had forgotten the certain aches and kinks that he is used to, but Dom is new to the sensation of it. “Sometimes it gets bad. Mostly I just ignore it and move on with my day.”  
  
“The bones in your toes are sort of not fully healed if it’s like that,” Dom states.  
  
Matt gives a shrug. “Was my own fault for running around and not wearing shoes in my own back garden. I already got enough flak on it from my mum.”  
  
Dom says nothing, but he does give a pat on Matt’s shoulder before they go back to watching TV.  
  
Dom switches the channels once the movie that they were watching has ended. The channel he ended up on is currently broadcasting a reality entertainment show where contestants are trying to survive on some small, tropical island.  
  
They settle into watching it and poking fun of the contestants.  
  
“What is with them whining about getting mud on them?” Matt asks, unimpressed by the complaining ones. “Like they wouldn’t have gone through it knee deep if they were at Glastonbury Festival instead of a tropical island.”  
  
“And they’re in swimsuits and don’t want to get into a mud bath coming from a natural mud volcano?” Dom agrees, looking at the contestants on the screen with disdain. “People pay hundreds of dollars for even a dollop of it to put on their faces. What they’re getting on that island is free, natural, and in huge quantities.”  
  
“At least they’re okay with how they’re gonna look even while getting filmed,” Matt sighs. “I wish I’m okay with being shirtless while getting recorded or photographed like you do.”  
  
“You admire my body?” Dom asks, surprised yet amused by that piece of information.  
  
Matt looks away, not wanting to let Dom see him blushing (technically Dom would see how his own face looks like while blushing). “I still get envious that you got a better looking body than mine.”  
  
“That is the result of going to the gym and exercise,” Dom points out. “And you’re not as bad to look at as you think. You’ve exercised with Al and you built up some muscle since.”  
  
“Doesn’t do much. I was late to the game. You don’t have the handles on your hips like I do,” Matt says, poking at the pouch poking out above his trouser lines.  
  
“It comes with age whether we like it or not. Chris has it too.”  
  
“Yeah, but Chris has this whole ‘dad bod’ thing going on right now,” Matt says, using air quotes on the new word that has been buzzing around the Internet. “And that’s working for him.”  
  
“Bells, trust me when I say that you’re a pretty decent looking man,” Dom sits up gesture at himself. “I mean look at me, I’m not finding it too bad being in your body.”  
  
“Except for my teeth,” Matt says, but he said it with a grin, so that meant that he has taken Dom’s statement positively.  
  
“Except for that,” Dom grins back.  
  
“I’m done with watching trash on TV for now. How much time do we have left on that device?” Matt asks.  
  
Dom checks at the device.  
  
“We got twenty hours left,” he answers.  
  
“Twenty hours is still quite a while to get through, isn’t it?” Matt notes.  
  
“What do we do next then?”  
  
\-----  
  
_19 hours remaining…_  
  
“Hey, you better stop eating from there,” Dom says to Matt, right as he is about to pick up what is his third slice of the large pizza that they ordered and was delivered to their door by one of the officers.  
  
“Why should I do that?” Matt asks, frowning.  
  
“Because you’re going to get my body fat with unnecessary amount of calories, that’s why!”  
  
“Oh yeah? Then why are you on your fourth slice now?” Matt counters back.  
  
“Not in my body for once,” Dom smirks. “So let me enjoy something bad once in a while!”  
  
“Oi, that’s  _my_  body that you’re taking advantage of to get me put on extra weight!”  
  
Dom gives an evil grin and takes a large bite off of the pizza slice in his hand.   
  
In retaliation, Matt ignores Dom’s orders and ate his third slice of pizza with gusto. He also takes a few gulps of orange soda just to add more fuel to the fire of spite.  
  
In the end, the both of them gorged down on the greasy pizza with no leftovers left. It has been a long time that either of them had one anyways.  
  
\-----  
  
_16 hours remaining…_    
  
“Wow, your body really is more tolerant to alcohol than mine,” Matt notes.   
  
The pizza delivery was easy to deal with. It was harder to convince the officer on duty to buy them a bottle of whiskey. But in the end, they won the argument and got a decent brand.  
  
For Matt, it usually takes around three shots of whiskey before he feels the effects and ten shots before he blacks out. In Dom’s body, it took two more shots before he feels drunk. Right now, he’s on his twelfth shot and he’s still talking coherently.   
  
“Fuck off, detached voice of mine,” Dom groans from the floor. In a roundabout way, the drummer gets to experience how it feels like to be a lighter drinker than what he is used to.  
  
“At least you’re still king of the party in the band,” Matt says wryly before taking another shot straight from the bottle.  
  
Thirteenth shot and still standing!  
  
From the floor, Dom responds with another groan.  
  
\-----  
  
_11 hours remaining…_  
  
Matt is learning something new while lying in bed in the darkness of the hotel room. It turns out that not all of his personality, habits, and tics made it through the transfer.  
  
For the first time in Matt’s life, he concedes that his friends, girlfriends, and family has been right the whole time in their complaints about how he snores very loudly when asleep.  
  
And his snores are  _very_  loud, since this is the third time that the noise had woken him up from his slumber. Meanwhile, Dom is still soundly asleep next to him, blissfully ignorant of the racket he’s making.  
  
Usually, when Matt gets drunk, he tends to sleep better. But apparently, that perk is still stuck in Matt’s own body, so Dom gets to enjoy good sleep while Matt is stuck being awake by his  _own_  snoring.  
  
Matt had ignored the others when they said that he should experience what it’s like to be in their shoes and suffer from his own snoring. Now that he literally is in somebody else’s body, he knows what it’s like to receive it and it is very annoying.  
  
There is only one way to deal with that. Picking up an extra pillow, Matt throws it hard at Dom.  
  
“Wh—what’s going on?!” Dom sits up, his alert battling against sleep.  
  
“Your snoring was disturbing my sleep,” Matt calmly states.  
  
“Is not mine…” Dom grumbles, glaring at Matt despite the singer being unable to see it.  
  
Matt ignores that as he goes back to sleep under the temporary peace and quiet that he caused.   
  
\-----  
  
_10… 9… 8… 7… 6…_    
  
The switch back was pretty anticlimactic.  
  
They held the device together as the seconds counted down to zero. There was a ‘click’ first, then a few beeping sounds before they felt like they got swirled into a dizzy wormhole.  
  
In only a few seconds, both Matt and Dom find themselves switched in their seating positions, but finally back in their rightful bodies.  
  
After hugging each other out of joy of being back to normal, Matt is more than happy to hand the device over to one of the research center’s scientist awaiting for it by the hotel lobby, safely kept inside a plastic bag to avoid directly touching it.   
  
After that, he and Dom were escorted off by an officer to a nearby airport and before they knew it, they’re on a private jet flying back to Los Angeles.  
  
“I’m glad that’s finally over,” Dom sighs in relief, stretching himself as he settles down on the cushy seat across from Matt’s.  
  
“Me too.”  
  
“You know, even though we’ve only been in each other’s bodies for twenty-four hours, it feels really good being back in my own skin,” Dom says, looking at his hand, twisting and turning it around to look at it in a newfound appreciation of his own body.  
  
“We freaked out at first, but after that, it wasn’t too bad being in a different body,” Matt states. “All in all, it felt like we learned something from each other in ways that we couldn’t have imagined.”  
  
“Definitely,” Dom nods. Then he gives Matt a grin. “And I finally know that between the two of us, you’re the more narcissistic one.”  
  
“What makes you think that?” Matt asks, raising an eyebrow.  
  
“This morning,” he hums.  
  
“No way,” Matt says quickly, realising what Dom is talking about and seeing that the smile on his face is a lecherous one the whole time.  
  
“Oh yes, you are,” Dom shakes his head, smirking. “You can’t deny that you enjoyed it, especially since you asked for it.”  
  
“We’re not talking about it,” Matt hisses.  
  
Unfortunately for Matt, Dom is on a roll. “Even when I was staring at my own face while screwing you, I could see that you definitely thought about screwing yourself before!”  
  
Matt doesn’t say anything, keeping his mouth shut and not looking at the drummer.   
  
“I bet you’ve thought about having a clone or alternate version of yourself to have his wily ways with you and  _you_  would’ve enjoyed it!” Dom cackles. “With what happened yesterday thanks to science, maybe someday it’s possible to really have your dreams come true!”  
  
Matt glares at him. He knew he shouldn’t have asked for it, but he did. This is the one regret from the whole experience that Dom is making sure that Matt would never live down with.   
  
No matter what the drummer would try on him, Matt is never ever going to confess that without Dom and that body-swapping device, the impossible wet dream of his would never have been fulfilled. And he hopes very strongly that the possibilities of flash cloning and dimensional travel will stay as fictitious possibilities for a very, very long time to come.


End file.
